


Systems of Belief

by Motchi



Category: Cowboy Bebop (Anime)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 17:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Motchi/pseuds/Motchi
Summary: Faye, Jet, and what it means to believe in more than yourself. Faye/Jet, Post-Bebop.





	Systems of Belief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bofoddity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bofoddity/gifts).

"So," he says.

He's found her, red-eyed and puffy-nosed and sentimental, slumped on her bed. It's been an hour since Spike's left, but Faye swears she's only been crying for half of it.

"So," he says again. "I thought you'd left. Like Spike. Like Ed and the mutt."

"Yeah?" she says. The syllable holds the ugly scritch of heartache. Embarrassed, Faye wipes her nose and turns away. "And where would I go?"

Seconds tick by, a half a minute ticks by, and yet he continues to stand in the doorway, silent and unmoving. Faye sniffs, the only sound in the room, and decides to resent Jet and his long pauses from now on.

Finally he says, "I guess it's the two of us then."

* * *

  
  
Faye believes in jazz.

She likes the way Jet keeps it running on the _Bebop_ to fill up the silences that used to be filled by a dog, a girl, and a man. Sometimes she imagines them sitting in their usual places, watching her bob and tap to her life. She misses them, even though she wishes to three hundred stars she didn't. She misses the endearing strangeness of the girl. She misses the uncanny calmness of the dog.

But mostly, she misses the man and the way he missed someone else.

* * *

Jet sniffs the air. "Cookies?"

"I _bought_ them," she says. She flashes her hands at him before scooting forward on the couch. "You won't see oven mitts on these."

Her mittless hands waste no time in opening the white paper box sitting on the table. Jet leans over from the other side and peers in. "Chocolate?" he says.

"Chocolate chocolate chip," she clarifies and picks one up. "A girl's got to have her comforts, you know."

Jet does know. Just as he knows he's still not used to the two empty bedrooms.

"Here. Take it," she says, and tips the cookie toward him with a little smile. "I imagine a guy needs comforts too."

* * *

Jet believes in time.

When he was younger, he wanted to trap it and store it in a jar as if it were a bug or a collection of paperclips. He could keep it on his nightstand, next to the alarm clock, or on a shelf next to his books. He could take it to school with him on test days—he could use it to impress the girl who sat behind him. There were all kinds of things a boy could do with a jar of time.

Impossible, his father told him. Time was a living thing, his father told him. Time was meant to run free, like the clouds, like the stars, like the future. But, his father told him, if he took care of it, it might take care of him.

That worries Jet.

* * *

She bumps into him in the narrow hallway as she's leaving _Red Tail's _hangar.

He steadies her, apologizes, then takes a step back. "New dress?"

"Hmm?" Faye looks down. All she sees is red at its frumpiest. "Oh. I caught a seam on that last bounty. Ruined my shorts," she says, rueful.

"Huh” is his response. His expression's unreadable.

"This was all the store had in my size," Faye explains. "I— It's not my thing." She tugs the neckline down and wishes the hem was a little higher than her knees. She looks and feels like a damned schoolteacher and wishes Jet would say something, _anything, _instead of looking at her like that.

"I like it," he finally says. "Red's always been pretty on you."

He continues down the hall whistling a sax line from one of his favorites, leaving Faye's face the color of her dress.

* * *

Faye believes in jazz.

She sits on the stairs in the cabin sometimes, in the dark, and lets her ears and her mind have a soak in it. Sometimes her feet tap in time to an upright bass, sometimes a lit cigarette hangs between two fingers as a saxophone wades through the speakers. Through the unhurried curl of smoke, through the hidden speakers, her life plays back through someone else's voice.

It's got history, she thinks, and as long as it's a history that's older and screwier than hers, it's all right. She likes that someone took a handful of bad moods and made something beautiful out of them. A trumpet. A bass line. A _rat-a-tat-a-boom-boom-ching_. A _shooba doo-ya do_. Sometimes her head bobs when her feet aren't enough. Sometimes she forgets she's not beautiful.

* * *

"Looks aren't everything," he says.

Jet knows he shouldn't be standing in the bathroom doorway, not before she's had her coffee, not before she's put on lipstick, and certainly not when she's fretting over imaginary wrinkles. He should know better.

"Only ugly people say that," she replies.

Jet's right eye twitches at the rawness in her voice. He feels it in his face, his arm, the way his hair doesn't grow like it used to, and accepts it. "I suppose you're right."

Her hands drop to the sink edge; she leans against it and meets his eyes through the mirror. "I didn't mean you, Jet. You're not—you're no vid star—but... you know."

He knows, and as always, he should know better. He half nods, half shrugs. "Yeah, I get you."

But her eyes are still on him, studying him with an introspection she usually reserves for cigarettes and jazz. "There's something about you, Jet," she murmurs. Her nails tap against stainless steel. "Can't put my finger on it, but I've always thought so."

Whatever it is puts a curve to her pre-lipstick lips. Jet feels something creep up the back of his neck. It might be pleasure, he thinks.

* * *

Jet believes in time.

He can't trap time, but he can admire it. He can admire the way it changes things. It can take a mountain and turn it into sand. It can take a field and turn it into a forest. It can take a broken past and turn it into a whole future.

It'll take care of him, his father had said.

Jet hopes so.

* * *

"Hand me that wrench, will you?" he says. His waiting hand is the only thing visible. The rest is hidden behind a metal panel, swallowed by the _Bebop's_ coolant system.

Faye switches her cigarette to her other hand and rifles through the tool box next to her. "Why don't you just get a new ship?" she says over the clatter.

"Why would I do that?" He sounds baffled.

Faye shrugs. "She's old. She breaks down. She doesn't appreciate you."

It takes a minute for him to reply. "She's not perfect, no, but she's worth it."

Faye locates the wrench and lays it in his hand. "She'll probably break your heart later."

His fingers wait a beat before curling around the handle. "Probably," he says. His hand disappears behind the panel. "But you never know."

Faye raises her cigarette to her lips, thoughtful. "You never know," she agrees.

* * *

Faye believes in jazz.

She's thought about leaving the _Bebop_ and its vacancies behind once, twice, a thousand times. She could do it; she's done it before. She could strike out for Earth again and a past lurking like weeds in the cracks of sidewalks. She could pull them up and examine their roots. She could find out if she truly was terrible or better or loved—but would it really make a difference?

Because someone told her once she had a future, and though he turned out to be a hypocrite it doesn't mean she has to be one.

* * *

Her hair's long enough to look like she's lying in a puddle of oil. It's probably the second time Jet's seen her on her back and the first time _underneath him_, though he's imagined it often enough. Never in a dusty warehouse, though. And never during a job.

Faye blinks up at him. "Do you think it's safe?"

They both jump as a bullet pings off the shipping crate they've taken refuge behind. "I don't think so," Jet answers.

"Well, we can't stay here," she says. "You're too heavy, for one."

"Oh," Jet says. He takes pains to avoid her eyes as he peels himself from her. He feels like an awkward sixteen-year-old again. "Sorry," he offers.

"So what's the plan?" she asks. She rolls from a prone position into a crouch as neatly as a cat and adjusts the ties on her shirt.

Jet tries not to notice. "On the count of three, we scatter."

"Scatter?" Faye pats her shirt into place and draws her Glock. "Like, you go that way" —she waggles the barrel to the right, then the left— "I go this way?"

"Something like that," Jet confirms. He eyes a truck not too far away he could make a dash for. "Ready? Count of three... One. Two—"

Faye grabs his arm. "Wait, Jet," she says and smashes a kiss on his stunned lips. "Next time you want to save me from a bullet, make sure there's a bed behind me. Three!" She shoves him away and dashes to the left.

Jet's feet are slower to move, though he's never felt lighter. 

* * *

Jet believes in time.

Time is a living thing, his father had said, and Jet believes it. It's taken him the better part of his years, the loss of two partners, and the leaving of one good woman, but he believes it at last. He sees it living in everything now, especially his future.

Jet doesn't worry any more.

* * *

  
  
"Jet." She likes the way his voice sounds in a dark bedroom.

"Faye." He likes the way she smiles at him a little differently across a table every night. "Are you saying my name for a reason, or just because?"

She likes the way his fingertips—flesh ones, warm—idle at the top of her hip. "I wondered if you were awake. You weren't snoring yet, but..."

Jet laughs. He likes the way they've got history. "I was almost," he says. "You need something?"

She likes his attentiveness, the way he takes care of her. "Maybe later," she answers, chuckling. "I was just thinking."

"About?"

"Jazz, actually. 'I'm wise,'" she says in a voice half singsong. "'And I know what time it is now.'"

He likes that she likes his music. "Ella or Holiday?" he asks, smiling.

She smiles back. "Does it matter? They're both right."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This author replies to comments unless on hiatus.


End file.
